Business
Transfer test: Children from Belfast low income families to be given free tuition
Sebastian GriffithsBBC News NI
PA MediaSome children, from low-income families in Belfast, are to get free transfer test tuition from a new centre aiming to “level the playing field”.
The new Foodstock Education and Empowerment Centre, aims to improve outcomes for children from disadvantaged backgrounds across the city.
It will provide free, high quality tuition and wellbeing support for primary pupils in years six and seven.
One of those backing the centre is former world champion boxer Carl Frampton who spoke at the centre’s launch.
PA Media“My own child is going through the test and I know how stressful it can be,” Frampton told BBC News NI.
“There are kids that have ability but just need a bit of help. It’s stressful for me and I am lucky to be comfortable financially but there are others struggling so much – this is just about giving kids who are able opportunities.”
Frampton also praised the cross-community aspect of the centre and the importance of the facility being situated in the city centre.
“You know what this place is like – it can be very tribal, and people maybe don’t want to go here or there or whatever,” he said.
“But to have a central location willing to help anybody that needs their help, I just think it’s an amazing thing.”
‘Removing barriers when it comes to education’
The new centre will provide weekly small group tuition in English, Maths and reasoning to prepare children for the Schools’ Entrance Assessment Group (SEAG) tests.
More than 60 post-primary schools across Northern Ireland use the test to decide which pupils to admit into year eight.
A paper by Queen’s University in 2022 claimed that academic selection perpetuated division in wider society in Northern Ireland and “disadvantages the already most disadvantaged”.
Foodstock founder Paul Doherty said it will “tackle the longer impacts of poverty through education” and will “empower people to better their lives”.
“A lot of people say because of financial difficulties they cannot afford additional tuition and they are pulling their child out of the transfer test,” he said.
“We talk about removing barriers when it comes to hunger through breakfast programmes – this is removing other barriers when it comes to education”.
One to one support will also be provided for children facing particular challenges.
Eligibility will be for pupils that need it most such as those from areas of high deprivation or low income families.
Foodstock said private tuition doubled the likelihood of attending a grammar school, but disadvantaged children were less able to finance it.
Its tuition programme will help “level the playing field for children across Belfast”, it said.
Foodstock’s director of strategy Ciaran Toman said he believed the centre will “reach people right across the city regardless of community” with the overall aim to “benefit as many children as possible”.
He added that it could help give “equal opportunity to those who are less fortunate and that the centre can plug that gap for disadvantaged children”.
Peter Hoskins,Business reporterand
Lily Jamali,North America technology correspondent
TikTok’s Chinese owner ByteDance has signed binding agreements with US and global investors for the majority of its business in America, TikTok’s boss told employees on Thursday.
Half of the joint venture will be owned by a group of investors, including Oracle, Silver Lake and the Emirati investment firm MGX, according to a memo sent by chief executive Shou Zi Chew.
The deal, which is set to close on 22 January, would end years of efforts by Washington to force ByteDance to sell its US operations over national security concerns.
It is in line with a deal unveiled in September, when US President Donald Trump delayed the enforcement of a law that would ban the app unless it was sold.
In the memo, TikTok said the deal will enable “over 170 million Americans to continue discovering a world of endless possibilities as part of a vital global community”.
Under the agreement, ByteDance will retain 19.9% of the business, while Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will hold 15% each.
Another 30.1% will be held by affiliates of existing ByteDance investors, according to the memo.
The White House previously said that Oracle, which was co-founded by Trump supporter Larry Ellison, will license TikTok’s recommendation algorithm as part of the deal.
The deal comes after a series of delays.
In April 2024, during President Joe Biden’s administration, the US Congress passed a law to ban the app over national security concerns, unless it was sold.
The law was set to go into effect on 20 January 2025 but was pushed back multiple times by Trump, while his administration worked out a deal to transfer ownership.
Trump said in September that he had spoken on the phone to China’s President Xi Jinping, who he said had given the deal the go ahead.
The platform’s future remained unclear after the leaders met face to face in October.
The app’s fate was clouded by ongoing tensions between the two nations on trade and other matters.
“TikTok has become a bargaining chip in the wider US-China relationship,” said Alvin Graylin, a lecturer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“With recent softening tensions, Beijing’s sign off on the structure and algorithm licensing now looks less like capitulation and more like calibrated de-escalation, letting both capitals claim a win at home.”
NurPhoto via Getty ImagesThe White House referred the BBC to TikTok when contacted for comment.
Oracle and Silver Lake declined to comment. The BBC has contacted MGX for comment.
The deal drew critiques from Senate Democrat Ron Wyden of Oregon, who said it wouldn’t do “a thing to protect the privacy of American user”.
Under the terms, TikTok’s recommendation algorithm is set to be retrained on American user data to ensure feeds are free from outside manipulation.
“It’s unclear that it will even put TikTok’s algorithm in safer hands,” said Sen Wyden.
He opposed the 2024 law, and was among the US lawmakers who lobbied to extend the TikTok deadline in January in a bid to give Congress more time to mitigate threats from China.
Some users also expressed caution at the prospect of new investors.
Small business owner Tiffany Cianci, who has more than 300,000 followers and nearly four million likes on the platform, said she hopes the incoming investors will maintain the same user experience for entrepreneurs like her.
“I hope small business owners are protected,” Ms Cianci said.
TikTok has said that more than seven million small businesses market their products and services on TikTok in the US.
“I reserve judgement on whether or not we have saved the app for those small business,” she added.
Ms Cianci said she chose TikTok for promotion because the platform offers profit-sharing on terms that are more favourable than what competitors like Meta offer.
Over the last year, Ms Cianci has been active in organising protests in Washington and on TikTok aimed at saving the app.
Japan’s inflation rate held steady in November, official data showed Friday ahead of the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy decision which could see central bankers raise interest rates to their highest level in 30 years.The hike would be the first since January and could potentially exacerbate turmoil in debt markets.Yields on Japanese government bonds have risen in recent weeks on worries about Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s budget discipline, while the yen has weakened.The core consumer price index — which excludes volatile fresh food — rose three percent in November, the same rate as a month earlier, in line with market expectations.Takaichi, who formally took power in October, has promised to fight inflation as a major priority.Her government succeeded in getting parliament approval for an extra budget worth 18.3 trillion yen ($118 billion) this week to finance her massive stimulus package.She has long advocated for more government spending and easy monetary policy to spur growth.Since taking office, however, she has said monetary policy decisions should be left to the Bank of Japan (BoJ).The BoJ began hiking rates from below zero in March last year as figures signalled an end to the country’s “lost decades” of stagnation, with inflation surging.However, with worries about the global outlook and US tariffs growing, the bank paused its tightening measures at the start of 2025, with the last increase in January taking rates to their highest level in 17 years.The inflation figures for November showed rice prices up 37 percent year-on-year, the internal affairs ministry said. Rice prices have skyrocketed because of supply problems linked to a very hot summer in 2023 and panic-buying after a “megaquake” warning last year, amongst other factors.Japan’s economy contracted 0.6 percent in the third quarter, but BoJ governor Kazuo Ueda said last week that the impact of US tariffs was less than feared.“So far, US corporates have swallowed the burden of tariffs without fully passing (them) through to consumer prices,” Ueda told the Financial Times.At the same time, inflation has been above the BoJ’s target of two percent for some time.The majority of economists polled by Bloomberg expect the BoJ to raise its main rate from 0.5 percent to 0.75 percent, which would be the highest since 1995.
Consumer confidence edged up ahead of Christmas but remains subdued in the face of cost-of-living pressures, according to new figures.
GfK’s long-running Consumer Confidence Index improved by two points to minus 17 for December.
The research showed that all five of the survey’s measures increased for the month, bouncing back from a weak November which had been impacted by pre-Budget caution.
Neil Bellamy, consumer insights director at GfK, said: “It’s tempting to see festive cheer in December’s two-point improvement in consumer confidence.
“This is a surprise finding for the UK high street because it contrasts with the Black Friday sales slump we reported on earlier this month.”
Industry data pointed to weakness on the high street earlier in the run-up to Christmas, the data from the CBI showing the sharpest fall in sentiment among retailers for 17 years.
The GfK figures showed a four-point improvement in its major purchase index – an indicator of confidence in buying big ticket items – to minus 11.
Measures related to shoppers’ views about the wider economic outlook also improved slightly for the month.
Mr Bellamy said: “UK households still face cost-of-living pressures, despite the recent softening in inflation, along with rising economic uncertainty, and those conditions result in weaker consumer confidence.
“Sadly, consumers resemble a family on a festive winter hike, crossing a boggy field – plodding along stoically, getting stuck in the mud and hoping that easier conditions are not far off.”
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